By Nicole Heubusch
Do you need to get rid of items you don’t need? Maybe your neighbors need to do so as well. Hosting a community garage sale will not only help you make a lot of money, but it can be a great way to bring your HOA community together in the process.
Step 1: The first step to take when hosting a community garage sale is to choose a date. You’ll need to find a date that works for almost everyone, and is far enough in advance that you can promote the sale.
Step 2: Promote, promote, promote! Make up some flyers about a month ahead of your sale date to pass around to neighboring communities. Include the addresses of participating houses on the flyers.
Step 3: Get everything organized. Encourage other participants to prepare the items they want to sell. Go through closets and drawers and pull things out, marking them with prices as you go, so you don’t have to price everything all at once.
Step 4: Send out reminders to residents that the community sale is coming up. Do this about a week before the sale.
Step 5: Get a few residents together to paint garage sale sales. Advertising your community garage sale is very important. Get a good few pieces of cardboard, and paint your message in a bright color that stands out.
Step 6: Speaking of advertising, it’s very important to get the word out, so advertise in your local newspaper. Did you know that if you send the information about your community garage sale to the Osprey Observer, a month ahead of the sale, we will post all of the information in our HOA section? Email nicoleh@ospreyobserver.com to get HOA news in the paper.
Step 7: When advertising, make sure to include general street intersections, as well as the name of the community.
Step 8: Make sure residents prepare and arrange everything in their garages the night before. If they need to set up on a driveway or yard, remind them to have everything near the door so they can run it all out and set it up quickly in the morning.
Step 9: Remove your sign after the sale for several reasons. One: so people don’t come back the next week looking for the yard sale. Two: most city ordinances require signs be removed.
